Tuesday, October 25, 2016

As many of you may, or may not know, my life has been changed greatly over the last year. Much of this has been due to my church and the people I've met through this church. My friends have had a great effect on me. I see the world as a place to serve others, rather than only myself. I have found joy where none existed before. God is always good. One thing that has greatly increased in me is my sense of the amazing differences God bestowed upon each one of us. No one is the same and there are some differences that God intended us to respect. First and foremost of those is the respect a man should have toward a woman(any woman).

A little background before I go any further. I have never been one to have many female friends. That has changed over the past year. The ladies in my church are great. Several I consider to be good friends. This has changed my perspective, mainly because many of these women are godly and respectful. They honor God and respect the word of God. When you see ladies like this in everyday life, a new respect for women is developed.

I think some blame can be placed for the moral sewer we are in right at the feet of the feminist movement over the past 50 years, downplaying the inherent differences between men and women. Men have gone from cherishing women to competing with them. I don't think this is the way God intended us to live. Before you decry me as a misogynist, I believe, as the civil law says, all people are equal before that law. Also, before you get mad, realize that I am advocating that men honor women and women respect men. Both sides have much to work on because our culture has muddled what it is to be a godly man and a godly woman to the point that this aspect of life is almost unrecognizable. Boys need to be raised to be godly men and girls need to be raised to be godly women, and until we get back there, this will continue. It's taken me over thirty years of life to realize this.

Now, to the meat of my message. I am tired of people who, for many years and decades, have hammered the left(rightly so, I might add) for being anti family and anti Christian and anti morality and now have gone all in for Donald Trump because they are afraid of the bogeywoman Democrat running for president. I know Hillary Clinton is a disaster and she will likely be an enemy of the church. Ask anyone who knows me and they can tell you how much I did to try to prevent the scenario we're facing right now. Nearly 10,000 miles traveled and thousands of doors knocked on will attest to that point too. I've been in this fight for quite some time.

Fast forward to today and people I once respected and looked to for moral guidance have left the Christian movement high and dry. People like Franklin Graham, Dr. James Dobson, and Tony Perkins have flushed their ability to speak to issues of morality and biblical sexuality down the drain. How are we supposed to be able to advocate for marriage being a forever promise between God and our prospective spouse when people the same people who told us that for years are now covering for a man who trades in his wives when they get too old, like a wealthy man does with his cars? Michael Farris, who has been instrumental in the homeschool movement and was a founding member of the "Moral Majority" in the 1980's said this,

I couldn't agree more with what Mr. Farris said. The Christian right has become what they railed against for so many years.

When people, who have made it their business and their mission to speak up for traditional values, throw their credibility away for political expediency, we know they have bought into what Satan peddles. No one is righteous before God, but we must try to be. Giving in to a disgusting man, like Donald Trump, because of a fear of his opponent shows a stunning lack of faith in God. A phrase my pastor used several months ago keeps coming back. So many people are trying to "put God in a box".

On October 7th, when I first saw the piece about Trump's hot mic comments regarding how he treats women, I told some friends of mine, but I wouldn't even send the article to my female friends. I did send it to their dad and let him know what I thought so that he could inform them, but I wasn't going to subject them to that kind of filth. I couldn't bring myself to do that. Fast forward to just last week and a piece by Nancy French in the Washington Post,

I was in tears by the end of this piece. I want nothing to do with a movement or a party that will excuse one vile and awful person just because the other might be worse. I can't do it. I have screwed up many times in my life and I've paid a price for doing so. Relationships have been harmed. I was on the wrong path. I've found my way back, thanks to God working through so many good people and lots of personal reflection and prayer. I don't want to go back to the path that isn't from God's word.

Shortly after reading that piece, Nancy's husband, David French, released this piece in National Review,

David French and his wife, Nancy, adopted a child from Ethiopia. He was a subject of scorn and ridicule for this because a sizable minority of Trump supporters, Trump's cult, if you will, think this is disgusting. We have to push back against this type thinking. Enough is enough.

As I read an email from a friend of mine last night, her work and her words rang true. She is burdened for two young ladies in the community she is staying in who have an abusive and immoral father. She's trying to combat what so many "evangelical" leaders are now excusing as locker room talk. She is reaching out to young women in a different country, trying to help them overcome what society has become. She, through the Holy Spirit working through her, is doing what we all need to do. We need to readjust our focus from a purely political and worldly focus to one of reaching the lost for Christ and then helping them to walk the path laid out for us in the word of God. This friend has reminded me of that calling and I think we all need a reminder, from time to time.

Stop making up excuses for evil! Stop making up excuses for fearing man! Fear God and speak the truth in love! Jesus still saves and God will still be in control on November 9th, just as He is right now.

Friday, October 21, 2016

I've been debating with myself on what to write over the past week or so. I have multiple angles on how to approach the cultural battle we are in the midst of right now, but this idea has been coming to the forefront of my mind since I took the plunge into leading a homeschool class every Thursday.

Just over a year ago, I would have considered myself a homeschool skeptic. My eyes have been opened. The biggest eye opener has been my friends(not just one family, either) and their dedication to homeschooling. My pastor and his siblings were homeschooled. My friends, the Bontrager Family, have all been homeschooled and several other close friends I've met over the past year were also homeschooled. They are the reason for the break through on this subject for me.

Over the past 14 months, I've been heavily involved with politics(who, me?) and I've had a chance to interact with people from all walks and ways of life. The singular element that I've seen that makes the difference in a young person's life is the way they have been cared for and educated by their parents. Looking back on my education, public school did a decent job of teaching me to do math and to write and read. What it didn't do was prepare me for life after school. What it didn't do was instill in me values I now hold dear. What it didn't do was give me a grounding in the Bible. I've had to do all of these things on my own, and sometimes, I failed miserably. I don't blame my parents because homeschooling really wasn't even a thing people did when I was a child in Nebraska. In some states, it was illegal. In many states, it is still frowned upon. Luckily, here in Iowa, many people celebrate homeschoolers.

Here's where I'm going with this. The Bible says this in Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. The more a parent can instill the ways a child should go from an early age, the less likely our society is to be filled with people like we have now, so uninformed/misinformed/ignorant(sometimes willfully so), they can't make decent decisions in areas of great importance. Nobody knows a child better than that child's own parents. Each child can be brought along at a pace suited for that specific child. Most public schools teach to the mushy middle. The kids who could excel are held back and the kids who need a lot of personal help are left behind. This is hurting so many children.

Not to discount everything else I've said above, but the main reason I see to take your kids out of public school is this; public schools teach things that are harmful to children. Secular humanism is now the default religion of the government school. Students are taught that the only absolute is that there is no absolute truth. Everything is gray. Nothing really matters except for how something makes them feel. This is killing our nation.

Most public school kids, even with highly involved parents, will be fed a steady diet of secular thought and no respect will be given to a child's spiritual well being or to that same child's parents' wishes to have them brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Public school is incompatible with raising godly children. Do some godly Christian people make it out of public schools, yes. Is this the norm, most definitely not. In a study, released last year, the Pew Research Center found that 25% of people born after 1980 have no belief in God. This number is more than double the amount for any previous generation. It is no coincidence that public schools have been consistently moving toward outright hostility to those who believe in Biblical truth.

The biggest over reach from the progressives running our government run indoctrination education systems has to be the new catch all for all things progressive and anti God: Common Core. The phrase is nebulous but it really just means a whole curriculum centered on making little progressive automatons, suitable for work in factories and service jobs. After much research, I found a piece that sums it up succinctly.

The even greater impact for future generations is this; homeschoolers grow up with a healthy skepticism of government and a greater reliance on family and the Church. We must start to push back at big government. I see homeschooling as the primary way to remove government influence from the life of the American family. We must remove government from as many aspects of daily life as possible. When government doesn't matter, they stop being able to control us. When government doesn't matter, people will actually take care of their neighbor. When government doesn't matter, businesses will flourish.When government doesn't matter, the United States of America will be made great again(to borrow a misused phrase). Government must never be the solution. People must provide that solution or be prepared to fight a tyrannical government at a later date.

Monday, October 10, 2016

I have a prayer request. A dear friend of mine has been called into the mission field. Allison Bontrager is going on a 5 week mission trip to Mexico to minister, encourage and support young women in the Russian/German Mennonite community in that country.

Pray for her safety, that she would be filled with the spirit of the Lord, and that she would be able to help win souls to the Lord. Also, pray that she is a light to the young women she comes in contact with.

Allison has been there for me at God appointed times to speak to me from God's word and to provide a spiritual lift when I've faltered over the last year. My faith is immeasurably stronger because of Allison. And, she makes the best no bake cookies.

In one month, our national nightmare will be codified by the vote of people who don't have the best interests of the nation at heart. The 2016 presidential election has been a hot mess(or as a Senator from my home state of Nebraska described, a dumpster fire) for the better part of a year now, but mark October 7th , 2016 as the day the Trump campaign died. I won't post links to the articles that quoted or even showed the video of Donald Trump from 2005 because I have too much respect for my female friends. Suffice it to say, what Trump said 11 years ago is the real Donald Trump. Those wishing he was a better person or could possibly act "presidential" will be waiting until they die or until Jesus comes back, which ever comes first. I pray for the latter daily.

The Trump campaign has forever damaged the ability of the current Republican party to speak to issues that many of us hold dear. I'm a small government type when it comes to political philosphy. The GOP is so far from being a small government party, they are happy being the "we'll die from debt slightly slower than the other guys" party now. In areas of morality, the GOP has also abdicated their place as the party of morals, once and for all.

As someone who led a life away from church and from the truly Christian lifestyle for many years and recently found my way back, I can honestly say that I understand why so many people are eschewing the Church, nationally. When people like Robert Jeffress and Dr. James Dobson make excuses for the behavior of Donald Trump, why choose to be apart of a religion that endorses the same thing as the world endorses?

Christians are called to be separated from the world in our ways. If we are not willing to stand against the national disgrace that is Donald Trump, what will we be willing to stand against? I know Hillary is bad. We've all known that for the better part of 30 years. Why then, did Christians allow someone like Donald Trump to gain the nomination to oppose the wretched woman? It's almost like some of us went from state to state sounding the alarm that a Donald Trump nomination would result in Hillary Clinton being elected president. Oh, wait. Some of us actually did do that.

While a chorus of "I told you so's" is highly warranted, I am now going to choose to drop to my knees and ask God for His mercy. Our nation surely doesn't deserve it, especially since our leaders and wannabe leaders now say marriage is a nebulous concept to be defined by the parties choosing to define it, men aren't men and women aren't women(opposing God's design), and babies aren't babies until some crazy group like Planned Parenthood says they are babies.

Don't try to tell me that "I should think about the cabinet and the Supreme Court" with regard to Trump. He has shown himself to not have the ability to listen to wise counsel. He has surrounded himself with people who are not conservative. His most trusted advisor is his daughter. She is a big government progressive with views more closely aligned with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama than with the late Antonin Scalia or Senator Mike Lee.

Anyone, and I mean anyone, who has accepted Jesus as He is and believes that He is the way, the truth and the life, must turn from the current major party choices for president. Some will practice situational ethics and say that one(or the other) is better than the other. That is wrong. Both must be soundly rejected. One will win, but the winner must not have a mandate to anything other than sit in the Oval Office.

On a more personal note, I've never had many female friends because of the businesses I worked for in the past were heavily male dominated, but I have become friends with several of the most amazing ladies I've ever met over the past year. If anyone, and I mean anyone, said what Trump has said about women toward one of my friends, my sister or my mom, I'd do a lot more than just wring my hands. I'd do everything I could to make sure that person was called out for the digusting human he was. I surely wouldn't vote for that person. What would you do if someone used language like Trump has used and directed it toward your daughter, your wife, or your sister?

Sara Gonzales, a writer at RedState.com, summed up the current mess like this:

Finally, if you want to disagree, give me your best shot. Tell me where I'm wrong. Just don't use the Bible or Christian values to make your case, because that would be heresy and I won't put up with it. Please, comment below.